Traditional pads help protect skateboarders from injury but can be bulky and limit mobility. During the [email protected] program, Syracuse University students Tiago Da Costa and Lucas Lin designed modular padding called PhalHex that gives athletes unique and personalized protection.

“Longboarding really started based on surfboarding. It was sort of the idea to put wheels on a much longer board than a skateboard because it would offer you stability,” said Da Costa. “A lot of people wanted to do sort of urban surfing. They wanted to go down a hill like they would a wave.”

“Traditional skateboard pads, they look like a turtle shell. They wrap around your knees and your elbows. We conducted a survey and found a lot of people don’t like to wear them because they are uncomfortable and look ugly,” said Da Costa. “We thought that if we were able to incorporate a modular design, we would be able to make a product that can better wrap around you. It accommodates to you, not the other way around.”

“With our current design of the sleeve it has many Velcro mounting points that are already designed on the sleeve,” said Lin. “These individual shields they attach to the Velcro mounting points in the way that fits the user so the user can design where they want to put it and what they want to protect.”